Wednesday 20th June

What a night! The kids finally went to sleep between 3-4am, we were constantly having to tell them to go back to their rooms. Then by 5.30am most of the kids were up and awake and banging on the teachers doors wanting to know what time breakfast was! Where do they get their energy from? By 8am I took them over to the clubhouse where there were pool tables and table football and breakfast was served at 8.30am. The breakfast was Chinese style, consisting of dumplings, soup, some sort of noodle dish and a hard boiled egg. A lot of the western kids didn’t eat anything, it surprises me just how many of them refuse to eat Chinese food.

After breakfast they had free time until 9.30am when we got ready to go on a hike. We met the guide at 10am near the mini golf course and the horse riding and then started the two hour hike up the mountain. I was at the back to encourage the slower kids and I was really surprised at just how steep it was in parts. There were lots of loose rocks and kids kept losing their footing and slipping, it was not an easy climb! The girl in front of me was a new student and barely spoke any English and was wailing every time she took a step and slipped. We were a lot further back than everyone else, apart from two other students who were just in front of us and I was quite worried about if anything happened we were too far behind and had no phone signal. I was especially worried because the girl in front of me slipped a lot and on numerous occasions fell into me and nearly knocked us both down the mountain which was pretty much a straight drop down, it was really steep! We were ¾ of the way up when the girl said that she wanted to go back and couldn’t do it anymore, she had been shaking and wailing pretty much the whole way up but looking down it looked far too steep to get down that way so I pushed her to carry on, by this point I was carrying her bag as well as mine and pulling her up when it got too steep, I was exhausted! We finally made it to the top and it was a glorious view across the countryside. We walked along the spine of the mountain for a while and then started the climb back down. This was much easier because there were steps, but after the Great wall on Saturday, my calves were burning! I was so happy to make it to the bottom, scratched and bruised but everyone made it.

We walked back to the cabins for a shower and then went for lunch at the Goose and Duck clubhouse. After lunch there was free time until 2pm when we gave out the vouchers for the activities on the ranch. Each child had 15 tickets worth 1RMB each and each activity had a different value. There were all sorts of things to do, there was swimming, bumper cars, train ride, archery, bumper boats, badminton, basketball, tennis, pedal boats on the lake, horse riding, mini golf or go karts. The pedal boats and go karts needed an adult present so we rotated supervising those and the rest of the time wandered between activities checking on the kids. By 4pm most kids had used all of their vouchers and had gone back to their cabins until dinner at 6pm.

Dinner was another “BBQ” where the only thing that was barbecued was the chicken skewers. The kids played on the pool table and table football for a bit and then went back to their cabins until it got dark and we could have a bonfire and toast marshmallows. At 8pm we were getting ready to go to the bonfire and the kids sneaked up on another teacher and threw a bowl of water over him, apparently the kids did this last year and they were continuing the tradition. It was really funny but it also made me really paranoid that I would be next! They got another teacher and then I saw them coming towards me with a bowl of water so I ran away and 3 of my grade 4 kids said they would be my body guards and protect me. I had to go back to the bonfire to set up for the marshmallow toasting and as I turned the corner they tipped a mop bucket of water over my head, I was drenched! There was only one more teacher for them to get now and as she had seen it happen to three other teachers it was going to be difficult, but the kids (36 of them) did it by brute force, all surrounding her and holding her arms while one kid threw a bucket of water over her. Now that the soakings were out of the way, we could start the bonfire! We toasted marshmallows and made s’amores which the kids loved because most of them had never done this before. Everyone then returned to their cabins and had free time until lights out at 10pm. During this time some of the boys had caught a frog and put it in one of the girls beds, you can imagine the chaos we were dealing with until bedtime! At 10pm we went round checking on the kids and telling them it was time for lights out and by 11pm every kid was actually asleep!